SFXtra April 2006

Contents Starchaser Event . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2 French Exchange . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2 World Book Day . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3 Out of Hours Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4 ICT Academy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5 Chaplaincy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6 Student Voice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7 Fundraising . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7 Entertainment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8

Dear Parents A lot of things have happened since our last newsletter; the provision of new computers in the Learning Resource Centre, the visit of Mike Newell from Luton FC as part of a newspaper project, a space day as part of National Science Week, a presentation of the Duke of Edinburgh’s Awards to Year 13 students and a very successful Parents’ Association Race Night. Details of these and other achievements can be found elsewhere in the newsletter and I hope that you enjoy reading about them.

Achievement is an important part of life at SFX and over the course of the next few months many of our pupils and students will be taking public examinations (SATs, GCSEs, AS and A Levels). Let’s hope they all achieve the highest possible grades.

It is at this time of the year when we recall the achievements of Jesus; how he triumphed over death and provided for us the possibility of eternal salvation. This was a truly remarkable achievement and one which we should spend some time reflecting on. It enabled us to have a new beginning in the same way that the spring flowers around us now are a sign that nature has triumphed over the dark days of winter. Let us remember that the Easter message is one of achievement, triumph and hope.

Best wishes to all our families at this Easter season.

L D Rippon Headteacher

Dates for Diary: n Friday April 7th College closes for Easter holidays at 12.30pm n Monday April 10th to Wednesday April 12th Easter revision classes GCSE (Y11) n Tuesday April 25th College re-opens at 8.40am after Easter holidays n Monday May 1st College closed -

n Tuesday May 2nd - Friday May 5th Y9 SATs n Thursday 18th May Y11 Leavers’ Mass n Monday May 22nd Main GCSE and AS Level examination programme begins n Monday June 12th Main A’ Level programme begins

May Bank Holiday

The Newspaper Editing Team John Kelly – Y10 Simon Peers - Y10 Ben Coyle – Y10 Stephen Beard – Y10 Christopher Baker -Y10 Carl Brown -Y10 Adam Wing – Y10 Dennis Spellman – Y10 Andrew Dooley – Y10 Michael Moorecroft – Y10

David Kelly -Y10 Michael McNamee – Y10 Connor McCarthy – Y9 John Hyland – Y9 Andrew Dunbar – Y9 Stephen Langley – Y10 Nicholas Dwyer – Y10 Stephen McGuffie – Y10 Thomas Stanton – Y10 Thomas Bennett – Y10

Sean Buckley - YY10 Terence Whinnet – Y10 Michael Lord -Y10 Thomas Lees – Y10 Dominic Barlow – Y10 Tom Evans – Y10 Neil Cox – Y10 Plus articles by Y7

In partnership with YOUTH PARTNER

Parklands Excellence in Liverpool

Starchaser Event

French Exchange

National Science Week

On Sunday 26th March a group of 49 French pupils from Miss Bousquet’s old school in Villefranche de Rouergue (Aveyron), which SFX pupils have visited for the past 3 years, spent the day as guests of families of SFX pupils.

As part of National Science Week, SFX was invited to St Julie’s High School to take part in Space Day on Friday 17th March. Miss Martin took pupils from Years 7 and 8 to St. Julie’s High School to see a presentation about the Starchaser Team. The Starchaser Team talked to pupils about Space and their ongoing work in space exploration. The boys then had the opportunity to see the spectacular 11 metre Starchaser rocket for themselves. Some primary schools from the area also took part and sent out pupils to watch Starchaser’s presentation.

Starchaser manufactures rockets and undertakes experiments on rocket and Space travel. They also have ambitions to send families into Space one day.

The pictures show the rocket they brought to St. Julie’s with them that day, which represented the model of the largest rocket to ever have taken off from the UK mainland. This project was

On Monday 27th March the French pupils came into the school to shadow their new friends throughout the day attending lessons and sampling English cuisine in the Dining Room. It was a very enjoyable and enriching experience, enabling our pupils to understand better the difference between French and English culture and education systems.

It was a step into the past for Jean Michel Renard (the French teacher/organiser) who spent a year in Liverpool as a French Assistant at the start of his career some years ago.

Thomas Stanton Paul Mcgillan

Cricket Coaching Once again cricket coaching has been going on at St. Margaret’s Cricket Centre.

Monday 4.30-5.30 for Years 7-8 Tuesday 8.00- 9.30 for Years 9 & older In addition, various SFX boys have been to the U13/ U15 coaching on Friday nights for the City Schools/District Cricket Teams. Mr Reynolds has also just started introductory sessions for primary school pupils in the SFX gym on Tuesdays 5.30- 6.30. If you would like more information about cricket coaching see Mr Reynolds.

Andrew Dooley 10 Lewis

organised by Mr. Grace (St. Julie’s Head of Science) with the aim of getting children interested in science at an early age, to encourage them to pick science for an A level subject and possibly continue with further studies after they leave school. He also wants to create collaboration between SFX and St. Julie’s.

Paul McGillan 10 Lewis Thomas Stanton 10 Rigby 2

Public Speaking/ Debating

Teen Idol Following a very successful Teen Idol event last year in which Nathan Carter (Now in Year 11) came third winning the chance to record a CD, this year’s Teen Idol auditions were held in the main hall on Wednesday 8th March.

The judges were Mr Fox, Ms Manning and Ethan Hunt (of Year 11). They were our very own answer to Simon Cowell, Sharon Osbourne and Louis Walsh! Eighteen Students turned up to sing and they handled the pressure well. Ten successful pupils went on to the challenge heats at Parklands CLC on Tuesday 4th April where they competed against 10 pupils from 16 schools in Liverpool for a chance to earn one of the 48 places in the semi finals in May. The top three students from all semi finals will compete against each other in the Philharmonic Hall in June.

The following students are those who made it into the heats at Parklands.

Alistair Fredrick Nathan Carter Lawrence Langley Carl Latham Adam Killcourse Gareth Taylor Adam Kaufman Daniel Badger Michael McNamee Phillip Evans Joe Morris

Year 11 Year 11 Year 11 Year 11 Year 11 Year 11 Year 10 Year 10 Year 10 Year 10 Year 9 Reserve.

Congratulations to John Bridge (YR 13) for winning 3rd place (and a £50 prize) in the annual Catenian Public Speaking Competition.

This took place at the Adelphi Hotel on the evening of Friday 10th March. John delivered his speech, entitled “Live 8: poverty or publicity” to an audience of more than 100 guests, but nervousness was never an issue for him. He also took 3rd place in the same competition last year. John consolidates SFX success in this particular competition in recent years- former pupil James Richardson won 1st prize in 2004.

In the meantime, a group of year 12 students are setting up a new Debating Society at the college- more details soon.

World Book Day On Thursday 2nd March, as part of World Book Day, author Trevor Baxendale came to SFX to talk to a selection of year 7 pupils. Trevor is an author for the BBC and has written a selection of books in the ‘Doctor Who’ series. At the moment he is writing a book for children which he hopes will reach bookshelves in the near future. When Trevor invited pupils to ask him questions about his career he was asked what inspired him to write the Doctor Who books. He was particularly pleased with this question and told us that when he was a young boy he enjoyed reading comics and sci-fi books and making up his own characters for stories. Trevor also revealed that if he had not become an author he would have liked to become an illustrator.

After the interview Trevor signed his books and some pictures, with pupils able to purchase the books. We then posed for a photograph with him. Many of us found it very interesting and exciting and we would happily welcome him back to SFX. Thanks to Mrs Boughey and the Librarians who made this event possible.

By Adam Gilbert, Nicholas White, Sean Cunningham and Joseph Reeds. (7 Alpha) 3

Specialist Status News ICT and Mathematics Refurbishment We are now in the second phase of refurbishment; we have now refurbished IT1, IT2, the Main School LRC, and the Sixth Form Library. Each room has been equipped with up-to-date computers, and bigger, flat screen monitors. The next phase is to create an ICT suite of five rooms by re-furbishing existing rooms, this will be beneficial to the students and the teachers, as all rooms will have the same layout, with the same equipment such as flat screen monitors and interactive white boards.

ICT students and their teachers will not be the only ones benefiting from the new ICT suites.

Teachers from other subjects will now be able to use computers, as the existing ICT rooms will become available as bookable resources and for some primary school activities. The Mathematics department will also benefit from the refurbishment of the Maths Floor and the creation of a dedicated Maths ICT suite in the main building. It is envisaged that the majority of refurbishment will be undertaken during the summer holidays.

John Kelly and Simon Peers

OOHL – Out of Hours Learning The Night Owl sessions are continuing to be offered from 3:30 – 8:30 pm each Wednesday delivered by staff from ICT, Technology and Art. These are available to all students from Year 11.

The sessions are already well attended and pupils find it beneficial as it provides opportunities to complete coursework and revision from all subject areas in the ICT suite, DT rooms and Art rooms. Alternatively, you can complete revision in the ‘quiet room’ or complete work on SAM Learning, which is also available to every student, and can be accessed in the ICT suite.

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SAM Learning required information at log in: Centre ID – L24PC User ID – (DOB) ddmmyy followed by your initials (no spaces).

Password – Exactly the same as User ID. You will find this site very helpful for your revision.

The sessions have been complemented with after school booster and intervention lessons from a variety of subjects including Maths, R.E and Science. The Early Bird session on a Tuesday morning is also available. Year 11 should give thorough consideration to coming to these sessions, as GCSEs are quickly approaching. Year 10 and Year 12 pupils are very welcome and will also find it beneficial when doing coursework, or revising for their Science GCSE modules.

Parklands High School Our New Community Partner We are also delighted to welcome Parklands High School as an official Community Partner.

Since September the ICT Department at

SFX have been working closely with the ICT Department at Parklands and have helped them to develop a new curriculum for Key Stage 3 ICT and support them in the development of GCSE and BTEC at Key Stage 4. On the 3rd of April the Headteacher Mr Alan Smithies wrote to Mr Rippon to officially accept the partnership proposal. This partnership will enable SFX to continue to support the ICT department at Parklands High School and hopefully enable even more pupils to enjoy and achieve in their ICT studies.

The New ICT Academy Programme The ICT department have been working with a training provider called Speke Training and Education Centre in Boulevard Business Centre to develop a one year ICT Academy programme for 6th Form Students which will encompass 2 days offsite work based learning and NVQ Level 2 in ICT and 3 days at SFX studying a BTEC First Diploma (ICT for Practitioners), as well as Literacy and Numeracy qualifications.

Community Transition & Partner Activities Our Specialist School Status“ is allowing us to strengthen our community links and help others to achieve their goals” – a theme which is close to our mission as a “Christian community”. This was said not too long ago by Mr Rippon and is one of his highly prioritised goals. We would like to inform you that this task is well underway.

Mr Roberts has recently been appointed as ICT Transition/Partner Co-ordinator for Key Stages 2 and 3. Also, Mr Morgan has been appointed as the Maths Transition/Partner Co-ordinator for Key Stages 2 and 3.

These two new appointments will allow us to move forward with our new projects, one of which is already in progress. This is the ‘Computer Club for Girls’ (CC4G) which is partly run and facilitated by our 6th Form Students who, under the direction of Mr Roberts act as Mentors and Classroom Practitioners in some of our feeder Primary Schools. St Gregory’s and St Paschal Baylon have now completed the Pilot Phase of the project.

This was recently highlighted by the DfES as an area of innovation and good practice and was showcased at the National Annual Mathematics and Computing Conference in Birmingham on Tuesday 14th and Wednesday 15th of March 2006. To highlight this new innovation, Mr Kelly ( ICTAC coordinator), has created a fantastic DVD which showcases this, among other activities completed so far.

In the forthcoming term the project will be expanded to the rest of our partner and primary schools in the area. Mr Morgan will begin to pilot the Jaguar Maths Challenge project in the near future.

This is an exciting project which will be offered to two other schools in our local community; New Heys Comprehensive School and Broadgreen High School.

STEC came into school to launch the new ICT Academy project and do some workshop activities with Y11 on Tuesday 4th April in the 6th Form common room. Selected Year 11 pupils met at 1.30 pm for a tour of the 6th Form block followed by roadshow activities.

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Chaplaincy De La Mennais Brothers’ Youth Gathering in Ploermel, France – January 2006 Following on from world youth day, at the end of January. Brother James took a group of 10 pupils from Years 13, 11 and 10 on a 4-day trip to France to take part in a De La Mennais Brothers weekend gathering at the Brothers’ mother house in Ploermel, Brittany.

added to the experience by a heavy snowfall which left around 5 inches of snow and led to the obligatory snow fights and snowman building.

Brother James congratulates our pupils on their attitude and enthusiasm during the trip which made taking them a real pleasure.

The weekend focused on the theme “God is Love” and was led by a team of brothers and lay people. Music was provided by four of the group and a French brother. Extra dimensions were

World Youth Day ‘06 A great deal has happened in terms of chaplaincy activities these past 6 months. We will begin by looking back at last summer and the momentous occasion of World Youth Day 2005. Two year 12 students (now year 13) Matthew Sewell and Luke Whalley joined Brother James and a group of 5 people from St Austin’s Parish, Grassendale on this fun filled German adventure which culminated in a weekend spent with the newly elected German Pope, Benedict XVI, with about a million other young people spread out across quite a few fields.

Nobody will ever forget the open-air vigil on the final night. That sea of praying, candle holding people lit only by the small candles they held in their hand illuminating the darkness. At the end of the concluding mass the next morning, before we all left to go our separate ways, all in some way changed as people, the pope announced in the traditional manner the venue for the next world youth day 2008… Sydney, Australia!!

Look out Oz; here we come!

A more detailed account if the trip and further photos can be found on my website at www.brojames.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk Articles by Brother James & Stephen Beard Y10

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Other Chaplaincy Activities Our Yr. 9 Amnesty International has continued this year with a faithful group of participants meeting once a week to learn about individual cases of human rights violations around the world and to campaign for justice. Activities have included writing letters to governments and military leaders in countries such as Bangladesh, Nepal, Mexico, Israel and here in Great Britain, and sending Christmas cards to victims of injustice around the world. We also participated in the Make Poverty History campaign in conjunction with R.E. classes in Yrs. 7-9, sending “buddy” posters to No. 10, Downing Street. We did in fact receive a letter from No. 10, thanking us for our efforts, and two of the group also received replies from Maria Eagle MP on official House of Commons paper in relation to a different campaign.

Future Events

Sponsored Cycle for a school in Togo, Africa – Summer, 2006 After Easter Brother James will begin collecting sponsorship for a fourteen day 1,400 mile solo Sponsored Cycle that he will be undertaking during the summer holidays to the shrine of the apostle St. James (Brother James’ patron saint) in Santiago Di Compostella, north-west Spain. The ride will be to raise money for a newly-opened school in the West African country of Togo. If anybody wishes to contact Brother James about potential sponsorship, please either pass a message to him at the Chaplaincy (Newman Building) or leave it with a secretary at the Main Office. (Brother James).

Student Voice

Attention Cyclists!

The school council have been recently pondering upon the idea of purchasing some new bike parks for the use of the student body. There are in fact two possible locations for the shed, one being the corner of the biology building next to the Year 7 yard. Watch this space for more news!

Ben Coyle Y10

Parliament News On Tuesday 14th of March the SFX representatives of the Liverpool Schools Parliament attended a meeting in the Town Hall at 12:30pm. The meeting included a question and answer session with the leader of Liverpool City Council Warren Bradley, and a briefing about the possible regeneration of St. Luke’s Church by the City Centre. The council leader began telling the Parliament about himself, a bit of his life history and went on to answer questions.

The Parliament was then told about the possibility of St. Luke’s Church in the City Centre being made into a United Nations Centre for young people; the plan is to erect a structure of glass and steel inside the walls of the Church which was severely bombed in World War Two. The centre will have three floors, a café, an area for performing and exhibition space.

Adam Wing Y10

Year 8 Fundraising The Year 8 charity is the Royal National Lifeboat Association (R.N.L.I) The present Year 11 were the first Year Group at SFX to support the charity, raising £1,034.00 from November 2002 to July 2003. Since then each year has managed to increase on the previous years total. The present Year 10 raised £1,560.00 and the present Year 9 raised £2,000.00. Amazingly the present Year 8 has already raised £3,700.00 to date and there are still 3 months left for fundraising. This is a new school record for fundraising at SFX. Thanks to all the Form Tutors and all those involved with the fundraising over the past few years and all those who helped arrange events and other activities to raise money for such a worthy cause.

John Hyland Year 9

Fundraising Activities Year 9 News Year 9 are raising money for the Marie Curie Cancer Care Hospice in Woolton. Events organised for Year 9 have included; cake & sweet sales, inter-form football competitions, sponsored kayaking, selling refreshments at parents evening and selling Marie Curie Wristbands. In the near future the Year 9 pupils plan to undertake a Marie Curie 10-mile sponsored walk with Miss Crickett, Mrs. Boughey and Mr. Bright also taking part. They hope to raise a lot of money for the hospice in this event and ask people to pledge donations. The event was originally scheduled for March 12th but due to bad weather it has been rescheduled for April.

Miss Crickett would like to remind all Year 9 pupils that the SATs are approaching and in the time leading up to them to work extremely hard as they will benefit their futures. Miss Crickett would also like to say that she is pleased to say that pupil reports have been sent home and is also delighted to say that she thinks the majority of them are extremely good.

Connor McCarthy Year 9

Year 10 Fundraising The current Year 10 has been raising money for Zoë’s Place baby hospice for the last two years. The hospice is based in West Derby and is totally reliant on donations to keep it running. The boys in Year 10 have watched videos about the hospice and Mr Farrington has also taken a small group to visit Zoë’s Place to report back to the Year Group in assembly. Penny Williams, who coordinates fund-raising, keeps in regular contact with the Year Group giving praise and encouragement for their efforts. In 2004/2005 the boys raised over £3,000.00 for the hospice, they have raised just over £1,770.00 this school year. The boys have raised money in a variety of ways, these include; yard sales, raffles and playstation tournaments. The Year 10 Form Teachers have arranged most of these events and they must be thanked for their continued help and support. 10 Lewis and 10 Bryant worked particularly hard this year. Miss Cain and Mr Farrington hope that the hard work continues throughout the school year.

Connor McCarthy Year 9

Year 11 Fundraising This year, Mr. Pedder and his Year Group will be fundraising for Oxfam. Their target: to raise enough money to build a well, providing enough water for up to 1000 people in the heart of Africa. The money raised all came from general fundraising and by selling goods (i.e. snacks and drinks).

Mr. Pedder gave thanks to his pupils and described the Year 11 Form Teachers as “superb” with their efforts.

Andrew Dunbar Year 9

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Entertainment £20 priz e

Professor ‘Green’ Project: Competition

The Professor ‘Green’ Project competition involves designing and creating a poster/cartoon/leaflet by either using ICT or hand-drawing. The prize for winning this competition is £20.00 per category. This will be awarded in the form of Borders vouchers where you can purchase Books, CDs and DVDs. The categories are: Saving the environment: The dangers the atmosphere and the rainforests are facing.

Saving the animals: The effects of man that are causing animals to become endangered and finally extinct.

Please send all your entries to Miss K. Lindop (AHT. Director of Specialist Status) c/o School Office St Francis Xavier’s College Beaconsfield Road Woolton L25 6EG Be sure to state your name, form and teaching group clearly on the back of your entry.

The closing date for this competition is Friday 26th May 2006.

Good luck!

Winners for last term’s Newsletter Competition Palindrome category: Dominic Fullan – 10 Mayne - £10 Prize Magic Numbers category: Dominic Fullan – 10 Mayne - £10 Prize Sudoku Puzzle category: Tresor Wose – 7 Kemble - £20 Prize

Every Child Matters Competition (£15 prize pp) Be Healthy: Liam Fletcher – 7 Campion Stay Safe: Jordan Rimmer – 7 Campion Stay Safe: Paul Furlong - 7 Campion Enjoy and Achieve: Brendan Patino – 7 Campion Preparing for World of Work: Paul Wileman – 7 Campion

£20 priz e

Sudoku

Try our Sudoko Quiz and you could win a £20.00 voucher for Borders Bookstore to spend on Books, CDs or DVDs. To enter fill in your details and answers and return the page to the school office by 26th May 2006.

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Quick Quiz

£20 priz e

n Along with Intel, which is the next major organisation to manufacture Computer Processors?

n How many number 9’s are there between 1 and 100? n Who is known as the founder of the operating system ‘Linux’?

n What is the difference between a theory and a theorem? n Which is the only word which ends with ‘mt’?

n A computer’s most basic form of language is coded in 1’s and 0’s. Early computer programmers had to program in this code. It is extremely hard to learn and because it is very basic, it is also very fast. What is this code/language known as? n What is the name of the program that converts ‘assembly’ language into binary so that the computer can read it?

n What is the name of the operating system Microsoft is planning to release next which is still in BETA? Try our Quick Quiz to win a Prize of a £20.00 Borders Voucher!

By Welwin Lobo, Michael McNamee & Michael Moorcroft

Entry Details Name

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Form . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Return your answers to: School Office, c/o Miss K. Lindop DEADLINE FRIDAY 26 MAY 2006 8